


Crash Course

by perculious



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1304839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perculious/pseuds/perculious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin could feel the flush starting around his collar and creeping upwards. He pressed his hands against his knees, staring at his fingers as they curled. “This is embarrassing.”</p>
<p>“Emotional honesty is never embarrassing,” Rei said, with such force of sincerity that it immediately made the situation at least five times more embarrassing. </p>
<p>(or: Rei coaches Rin in romance.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash Course

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doxian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doxian/gifts).



> Commission for Doxy/tumblr user thatsnotbeautiful. Feel free to add me on tumblr at quadlutz! (Commissions are closed right now, but I always love chatting about swimming anime.)

“It’s pathetic.” A hand clapped down on Rin’s shoulder, but he didn’t turn. Haruka was leaving the swimming pool, walking so close to Makoto that their shoulders were brushing. He hadn’t dried off properly before putting his clothes back on, and his thin T-shirt was damp in patches and clinging to his back. Rin could see his shoulder blades move.

“What do you want?” he growled. He could feel Rei’s smirk even though he wasn’t looking at him. Possibly Rei wasn’t even smirking, but it was the feeling that mattered.

“Nagisa-kun and I have talked about it extensively,” Rei said, “and we feel that it’s time for you to act.”

Rin turned at that, his back muscles tensing up. “Act how?”

Rei closed his eyes, the way he did when he was prepping for a big lecture. “Rin-san, anyone can see the way you look at Haruka-senpai,” he said. “It’s obvious, even to those who are not scholars of body language like myself. You and Haruka-senpai have always stirred intense emotions in each other, and since you started swimming with us, you’ve initiated conversation with him at least thirty percent more often than with the rest of us, and initiated physical contact sixty percent more often. It’s hardly subtle.”

Rin shook Rei’s hand off his shoulder.

“And Nagisa-kun agrees,” Rei said. “The situation is growing dire, and you need to act. Haruka-senpai would undoubtedly be open to your advances.”

Rei was still wearing his swimsuit, as was Rin. But Rei’s was one that he’d borrowed from Nagisa—Rin knew Rei had his own swimsuit by now, but he still wore Nagisa’s sometimes, and this time he was wearing short, tight mint green spandex that cut off at his upper thighs. It looked absolutely ridiculous, but it highlighted the deep V of muscle that disappeared into the low waistband, and the swell of his thighs, which was probably why Nagisa had encouraged him to wear it in the first place. Rei was getting a lot more laid-back about things like that, so if Rin pointed out that he looked ridiculous he would probably just respond with a shrug. It irritated Rin even more than the ultra uptight Rei had, because it hinted at some kind of relaxing activities happening behind the scenes that pissed Rin off to think about. It was incomprehensible that someone like Rei was getting laid and Rin wasn’t. Rei talked about physics equations in everyday conversation.

“What would you know about it?” Rin said. “You don’t know anything about Haru. Or me. Or romance, for that matter!”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong.” Now Rei _was_ smirking, and he pushed his glasses up his nose with his index finger. “Nagisa-kun and I have a mature relationship based on communication and mutual respect. I am exactly the person to help you out here.”

Okay, it was true that Rei was in a relationship and Rin wasn’t, but that didn’t mean anything. Rei’s romantic interest was Nagisa, and Nagisa was the kind of person who made things happen. Haru was the kind of person who sat in a bathtub for six hours waiting to see if anything would happen, and then reacted with a sigh of disinterest when it did. Rin couldn’t imagine Haru wanting to be with him. He was still surprised when Haru wanted to talk to him.

“How would you help me?” Rin said. “What could you possibly do?”

“Simple,” Rei said. “What do you think is holding you back from making a move on Haruka-senpai?”

“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” Rin snapped.

Rei shook his head. “As I thought,” he said. “Too proud to accept help. That’s why you’ll never get anywhere.”

“I’m not!” Rin gritted his teeth. “I never asked for your help to begin with.” He’d never asked for any help from Rei whatsoever, which made how much Rei had done for him particularly difficult to tolerate. And seeing how much Rei loved swimming with the rest of Iwatobi only made that clearer.

“I know,” Rei said. “And yet I’m graciously offering it to you. Have you ever dated anyone before?”

For at least five seconds, Rin struggled, weighing the strong desire to say “yes” and not let Rei treat him like a child against how embarrassing it would be if Rei figured out he was lying. “No,” he bit out. “But I’ve known Haru for much longer than you have.” Which was exactly what made it worse that Rei seemed to get Haru better than Rin. Rin hoped Rei hadn’t noticed that, or at least wouldn’t mention it.

“I thought so,” Rei said, and Rin wanted to kick him.

“You never dated anyone until a month ago!” Rin said.

“Ah, yes,” Rei said, “but a month of experience is better than no experience at all. You’re probably just nervous.”

“Of course I’m nervous!” Rin burst out. “I don’t even know how Haru feels! Who wouldn’t be nervous in a situation like this?” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, his shoulders rising with irritation. This topic made him claustrophobic.

“It’s understandable.” Rei nodded. Rin glowered.

“What you need,” Rei said, “is to take the edge off a little. You’re not nervous around me, right?”

“Of course not,” Rin said. There was nothing intimidating about a kid who was happy to wear bright yellow Speedos and sank when he tried to do a front crawl.

“So practice confessing to me,” Rei said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Pretend I’m Haru.”

Rin glanced down at Rei, and then back up. His disbelief was likely showing on his face more than was technically polite, but it was difficult for him to rein it in. “You’re nothing like Haru,” Rin said.

“Exactly,” Rei said. “So it shouldn’t be hard.” He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes slightly. “I’m Haru. Confess to me.”

Rin wasn’t considering it, but—the kinds of words he’d have to say to Haru floated into his mind unbidden, and he felt his cheeks start to flush. “No way,” he said. “This is way too embarrassing.” He turned and started to walk toward the Iwatobi locker room to shower and change.

Rei caught up with him halfway there, and grabbed his wrist. “Rin-san,” he said, his voice grave. “How do you ever expect to make things happen with Haru if you can’t even talk to me about it?”

He didn’t expect things to happen with Haru. The answer was about to spill out of his mouth, but he clamped down on it, not wanting to give Rei another reason to pity him.

“It’s none of your business,” he snarled instead. Rei’s grip tightened around his wrist, his fingers long and cool. Knowing Rei, he had probably calculated the exact amount of pressure optimal to grip Rin correctly. That was probably how Rei thought about this too: like it was just a matter of setting up the optimal conditions for Rin to confess, and everything would fall into place.

“All right,” Rei said, letting go of Rin’s wrist. “Text me if you want my help, then.”

“I won’t,” Rin said quickly, and fled.

-

Rin knocked on the door of the Ryugazaki residence, swallowing down his nerves. It was ridiculous to be nervous about this, anyway. Rei didn’t even know what he was talking about, and Rin should never have texted him. He just didn’t have any better way to deal with the situation.

The worst-case scenario would be that Nagisa was also here, eager to help Rin win over Haru. Rin wouldn’t put it past Rei to invite him. But when Rei opened the door, he was alone.

“Ah, good, Rin-san,” he said. “Please, come in.”

Rin peered behind him suspiciously for a tiny blond whirlwind, but the coast seemed to be clear. It still irritated him the way Rei welcomed him in like he was allowing Rin into his secret chambers. Rin thought it would be less weird to talk about this at Rei’s house than it was out in public right by the pool, but if anything, it felt weirder to be alone with Rei, especially when he was expected to talk about his feelings. His nerves were jumpier than ever, his shoulders and back tense.

Rei’s room was as immaculate and spotless as Rin had expected. There was a small picture of Nagisa waving his arms like a fool tacked up discreetly on the wall by his bed, and Rin scoffed. They had only been dating a _month_. It was disgusting. If he and Haru ever managed to—whatever—he was sure they wouldn’t be as visibly and smugly into each other as Rei and Nagisa. Well, he couldn’t really imagine Haru sharing swimsuits with him and tacking his picture up by his bed anyway. But that was okay, because that was relationship stuff for juveniles.

“So you do want my help with Haru,” Rei said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. He had a prim way of sitting, like he was trying not to mess up his covers, and it sent another stab of irritation through Rin. He didn’t even know why he was here.

“No,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He felt more out of place than ever, even more than when he first started coming to Iwatobi practices. “I just...”

“I know,” Rei said generously, and Rin scowled at him. What an ass.

“I’m not pretending you’re Haru,” he said. Like Rei ever could be. Rin had seen him swim.

“Okay,” Rei said, crossing his arms over his chest. “So just tell me how you feel.”

“I said I’m not—”

“Not as Haru,” Rei said. “As me.” He patted the space on the bed next to him. “Sit down and tell you how you feel about me.”

Rin gaped at him. “No!”

Rei sighed, shaking his head. His ridiculous bangs flopped out of place, and he fastidiously parted them again with his fingers. “Rin-san,” he said. “I am giving you the chance to be emotionally honest. If you want your first attempt at emotional honesty to be trying to communicate to Haruka the full force of your feelings for him after years and years of emotional repression—”

“—hey—”

“—then by all means, go ahead. But believe me, it gets easier with practice. That’s one thing I’ve learned from my relationship with Nagisa-kun.”

“I don’t care about you and Nagisa!” Rin spat out, but his traitorous legs sat him down on the bed. His heart was pounding in his chest a lot faster than he ever would have expected in the presence of a kid whose fucking goggles fell off during a relay.

“So let’s not talk about Nagisa,” Rei said smoothly. “How would you characterize your feelings towards me?”

Rin could feel the flush starting around his collar and creeping upwards. He pressed his hands against his knees, staring at his fingers as they curled. “This is embarrassing.”

“Emotional honesty is never embarrassing,” Rei said, with such force of sincerity that it immediately made the situation at least five times more embarrassing. “Nagisa-kun and I regularly—”

“Okay, stop,” Rin said. He seriously did not want to hear about how Nagisa and Rei spent all day communicating deeply and openly and staring into each other’s eyes or whatever bullshit Rei was about to say. “Okay.” He exhaled, willing himself to stop blushing, but it was a lost cause. All right, forget that. What would be the least mortifying thing to say here?

“I,” he said, and then stopped. He breathed in and out again, still staring hard at his hands. There was no way he was going to look at Speedo Glasses’ dumb glasses face while he did this. “You’re my friend,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “Even though your butterfly sucks.”

He didn’t look up, so he didn’t see however Rei reacted, but after a moment Rei said, “And?”

Rin curled his hands into fists. “And it was nice of you to let me swim in the relay,” he said, his stomach twisting tight with shame. It wasn’t nice—it was one of the most selfless things anyone had ever done for him, and to have it hanging over him, even though he’d never asked Rei to do it and never would have, was unbearable. He hated the awkward pauses and glances in his direction whenever anyone mentioned that Rei still had only swam a relay once. If Rei just had the decency to hold it over him, then Rin could properly hate him, but instead he acted like it was the most sensible thing in the world, even though Rin could tell he’d really wanted to swim.

“That’s very good, Rin,” Rei said.

“Oh, shut up,” Rin snarled, elbowing him in the side. But the pressure in his chest was lifting a little. It was like feeling your arm come back to life after you’d slept on it, and it made him feel oddly buoyant. He relaxed his hands a little, shaking his head to throw off some of the tension, and looked up at Rei. “What now? How is Haru supposed to respond to something like that?”

“I imagine he’ll tell you his feelings in return,” Rei said. Rin snorted. Not likely, unless Makoto was doing emotional honesty training with Haru at _his_ house, which... was probably a real possibility, now that he thought about it. “I believe Haruka-senpai’s feelings for you are quite the same as yours for him, Rin-san.”

Rin didn’t really want to hear that from this asshole who barely knew either of them. “Whatever,” he said, shrugging. Rin didn’t agree, but, whatever.

“So now there’s only one thing left to do,” Rei said. “You should kiss me.”

“ _What?_ ” Rin scrabbled back a little on the bed, his mouth dropping open in shock. His pulse spiked like Rei had just kicked him in the chest. “No! What? No! Definitely not!”

Rei gave a small sigh, like Rin was being difficult. “Again,” he said, “you’re working from a level of extreme inexperience and naiveté—”

“ _Excuse me_ —”

“—so you need to practice,” Rei said. “And I am generously offering you the opportunity, since a disastrous first kiss would mean nothing with me, while with Haruka-senpai it could be, excuse me, disastrous.”

“I didn’t—” Rin swallowed, still leaning away from Rei, unable to calm his heart rate. “I didn’t know that you—felt that way—I mean, I—I don’t want—”

“Please,” Rei said, pushing his glasses down a fraction so he could look at Rin sternly over the top of them. “I don’t. That’s why I’m suggesting it.”

“But I—” Rin grappled for words. “But I—I’m sorry, but I can’t do that to Nagisa, it wouldn’t be right—Nagisa’s my _friend_ —”

Rei looked perplexed for a second, and then he burst out laughing. Rin stared in horror.

“I’m sorry, no—” Rei said, wiping his eyes behind his glasses. “No, no, it’s not like that. Nagisa won’t mind. Really. Rin, you’re... not a threat. To Nagisa. _Trust_ me.”

And what was _that_ supposed to mean? Rin rebounded from shocked to offended in record time, spurred on by the little chuckles Rei was still emitting. “What do you mean, I’m not a threat?”

“Nagisa won’t mind,” Rei repeated firmly. “So it’s up to you. Of course, if you’d rather make a fool of yourself with Haruka...”

“I’m not going to make a fool of myself,” Rin said.

“Well then?”

“Just wait a minute,” Rin said. He was still hanging back, wary, glaring at Rei from under his bangs. Was it some kind of trick? No—Rei and Nagisa were too publicly disgusting for Rei to be harboring some kind of secret love for Rin. Okay, so—was it really _necessary_? Rin frequently tried to imagine kissing Haru, and couldn’t; or rather, he could imagine kissing Haru—sometimes it was hard to think of anything _else_ —but if he tried to envision the lead-up, where he drew Haru close and leaned in, and Haru somehow let him and turned his face up to be kissed—when he tried to imagine that, the image shattered and slipped away like water through his fingers. Maybe he did need practice. Maybe he had some kind of kissing deficiency, or something. He didn’t want to get all the way up to kissing Haru and panic, the way he choked sometimes in competitions, his nerves overtaking him and weighing down his limbs until he could barely breathe, much less swim.

“Well, if you don’t want to—” Rei said, starting to shift away.

“Shut up,” Rin said, “just shut up and _don’t tell anyone, ever_.” He grabbed Rei’s collar and pulled him in, surging forward to press their mouths together before he could change his mind.

It was an odd feeling, and not particularly erotic, having your lips mashed against another person’s—but then Rei made an _mmf_ sound and shifted a little, pulling back and softening his mouth and tilting his head, and—oh. Oh.

Rei wasn’t Haru, but his mouth was against Rin’s and his hands had moved up to Rin’s shoulders to gently hold him in place. Rin squeezed his eyes shut, breathing hard into Rei’s mouth, maybe just because of the adrenaline, but—okay, Rei was hot, and okay, Rin had checked him out on more than one occasion, but he’d always pushed it down deep into the area of his mind with everything else he mildly hated about himself. Rei opened his mouth, and suddenly the kiss got a lot more intense, with tongues and wetness involved, and Rin was glad they were doing this because his brain was on fire and this was just fucking Speedo Glasses. He pressed closer, tugging on Rei’s collar again. Rei pulled back for a second, and a spike of panic went through Rin—no, no, he did not want to sit back and think about this, he needed to keep kissing before his brain caught up—but Rei just removed his glasses and placed them carefully on the bed before kissing Rin again, his hand cupping Rin’s cheek.

As irritating as it was to think about Nagisa and Rei and how easy everything seemed for them, maybe the relationship _had_ been good for Rei, because Rei obviously knew what he was doing. He stroked Rin’s cheek with his thumb, and slid his tongue against Rin’s just for a moment before pulling back, shifting angles and going in to kiss Rin again. The kissing was soft but unrelenting, and Rin never got a chance to catch his breath before Rei was doing something new, nibbling on his lip or stroking his earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. It was—not romantic, maybe, not like the way when Rin saw Haru he felt like his heart was being run through a trash compactor—but it was intimate, and overwhelming, and Rin really didn’t want to stop.

He relaxed into it, feeling a little of the tension melt away from his shoulders, helped by the way Rei was rubbing his fingers against the back of Rin’s neck. It felt warm and good—and all at once it was too much, too much babying, and Rin was getting too comfortable for Rei to see. He pushed back, still breathing heavily, and wiped his mouth against the back of his hand. It came away shiny with spit, and just that made Rin’s stomach flip. He was mostly hard, and he didn’t even fucking _like_ Rei.

Rin ran his hands through his hair.

“That was good,” Rei said, looking even more ridiculous than usual without his glasses. “But you need to relax a little more, Rin-san.”

Rin’s temper flared. “Why should I listen to you?” he said. “I’m not taking kissing advice from someone who didn’t even know how to swim until a few months ago.”

Rei grinned and leaned back on his hands. “Ah, but Rin-san,” he said, “I’ve studied all the theory.”


End file.
